


The Side-Effect

by Mullvad93



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Non-Graphic Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:46:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mullvad93/pseuds/Mullvad93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was one side effect with the phoenix devil fruit, one he did not like to talk about. Whitebeard knew of it, it was few things about Marco the old man didn't know, but to get there the Captain had gone through a lot of pains during the years. Marco's stubborn nature being the largest obstacle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Side-Effect

Marco hadn't even realised that there was a side effect the first twenty years. He had been young and reckless and in love with the sea too much to even bother with unimportant things. Like getting a mirror. For some reason, the first pirate ship he'd been on had had a barber and the man had diligently fixed Marco's stubble in exchange for favours. Marco hadn't minded, he had enjoyed the favours just as much as the barber pirate had.

By the time he actually did notice, the man he had fumbled around with for some fifteen years had grey streaks in his hair and a back that popped. Marco hadn't taken well when the barber wanted them to retire. How could he, when he felt better than ever? “You're not thirty anymore, even though you certainly look like it. If you even change your mind, you'll know where I am,” had been the man's parting words. It was the day after that, when Marco had picked up the shaving blade, he saw his reflection for the first time in fifteen odd years.

It had been curious. Marco had seen himself reflected in the water from time to time since the barber had began his work, but the mirror's sharpness made the difference all the more clear. Or perhaps the likeness. He had seen every crewmate grow older, some of them dying before that, but all growing, ageing, in some way. When he looked at himself, twenty years after having eaten the devil fruit, he could find nothing different with the exception of slightly shorter hair that the barber had cut a few weeks ago.

It had been such a shock that when his captain found him an hour later he still hadn't shaved, just stared at his own reflection.

In the end the phoenix devil fruit had left him with a body that didn't age. Or a body that aged so slowly that he would be sailing the seas forever. His captain had muttered about 'immortals' and 'ground for trouble' but had been curious enough to ask Marco questions either way. “Would you grow old if you didn't turn into the bird? It's the flames that rebirth the phoenix, yeah? What if you don't use them?” It had taken him aback and he had refused to do so on principle. Why trade the wind under his wings for a life strapped down on deck when he could have both?

Marco continued his travels when the merry bands of pirates dispersed, some too old to continue, the young too eager to follow another, and Marco himself, still too much in love with the sea. But it had begun to chafe. Not the sea, he would never tire of the sea, but of the pirate life. He entertained the thought of joining an expedition to the grand line but didn't see it through in the end. The man who was captain was not a good man, and Marco had had enough experience of that kind as a pirate. He took to sailing in a small sailing boat from island to island in North Blue, living on the sea and doing some pirate hunting for the bounty. When he finally bored of that life he found another young crew more than happy to take him on.

The years went on and crew after crew he joined dispersed or died. Some of them tried to sell him to the Tenryuubito when they realised he had a devil fruit power. After the third crew trying to put seastone shackles on him he stopped telling people of his ability. And somewhere down the line, he stopped trusting people enough to show it, even the half transformation. He took up the sword again, after several years of neglect. Pirate crews were happy enough enrolling a swordsman to their crew, so what if he was stupid enough going to the sea if he was afraid of water? That was the excuse he gave them anyhow, he was not about to tell them of his devil fruit. It went well for the most part, the people who knew of other devil fruit users saw how his arms and legs locked in water but most weren't too nosey. It wasn't until his captain wanted to talk that everything went awry. Marco had been at sea for over a hundred years by then, and had exceeded eleven different captains. The eleventh captain was a man Marco had gotten along with fairly easily, even if the man and he didn't agree on many points of politeness. Nor personal space.

“Say Marco, what devil fruit did you eat?” he had said one day and Marco was uncomfortably aware of every eager eye on deck turning towards him. He had been going over the maps even though he had sailed the same route with two other captains and once as captain himself.

“I have none, I just can't swim,” he had gritted out. “Never learnt.” Low, incredulous chuckles had been heard at that and Marco had stared down the dimwitted men before returning the captain's gaze with a glare. The man looked calculating, Marco realised with a frown growing on his face. “What is this about?”

The captain had a bounty poster in his hand and Marco didn't need any other confirmation than that.

It was that way Whitebeard, then Newgate, first had found him, fighting his crew of the last five years with a sword in his hand and punching haki with the other. He refused on principle to fight with his devil fruit ability with people who wanted him for it. Marco's last enemy had barely fallen defeated to his knees when Marco had realised he still wasn't alone. In his adrenaline-fueled mind, he had nearly taken the man's head off.

“Hey, you want to be adopted?” the odd question had been weird enough to make Marco stumble and had allowed Newgate to avoid being skewered on Marco's blade. Of course, at the time, he had thought he was being mocked.

“What kind of question is that? No!” Marco had yelled but Whitebeard had only grinned.

It turned out that Newgate hadn't heard the reason for the gang-up on Marco. And after several weeks of being pestered, Marco had surrendered and accepted the role as first mate.

“But I'm not calling you stupid shit like, papa or something! I'm older than you.” Newgate hadn't commented on his age, but the wide grin on his new captain's face was almost worth the fallout they undeniably would have. Marco was used to it. It was just a question of when.

But Marco watched Newgate's crew grow during the following years. He saw the captain picking up more strays than any child would and he began to grow fond of this captain. The captain of strays. Marco wondered what that said of him, as he was the first one. Even if he had been the first one, however, he didn't stray from his first and only condition when joining. He never called the man 'papa' or any other versions the newer crew members managed to come up with. Newgate's crew had grown to twelve people by the time Marco sat down by Jozu, one of the new ones. It was the night before they would enter the Grand line, and their cook had opened up several barrels for the party.

By that time, Jozu hadn't eaten his devil fruit, and the big man was nothing but a young man barely out of his teens. With that in mind, most of the crew was... not skittish around Marco, but they hadn't known him long enough to be entirely comfortable. Their young age didn't help. Marco was aware of that; he had had that feeling a great many times before then. It didn't stop him from asking;

“Why do you call him pops, yoi?” The question had seemed to take Jozu back.

“Because he's happy when I do,” Jozu finally said. Marco left with the answer to mull over it in silence.

By the time Marco actually got around to admit that Newgate was a great deal better than the dirtbag that hadn't bothered raising him as a child, Marco was conflicted. He could call Newgate... but Marco wouldn't trust himself only to go so far. If he called the man...'pops' he wouldn't stop until everything was off his chest… Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew he was being a coward. He had entrusted his back to the captain more times than he would be able to count in that first year alone, and the man had never once failed him. If he revealed his devil fruit powers he would have to admit that this captain was the one he wouldn't quit, and that would make the pain all the more sharper when Whitebeard quit on him. It was only a matter of time.

It was Vista who came to him first with a keg of ale and a boisterous laughter. Marco hadn't really paid any attention, they were on a new island and the natives seemed happy enough to trade their alcohol for coin. It was too small to have an own marine base but large enough to hide enough of their enemies for him to be vigil. It hadn't even occurred to him to ask why Vista was already stumbling drunkenly around even though they barely had had the chance to open the barrels they've bought. He had been too focused to look for outer threats from the crow's nest and forgot the ones they had brought themselves.

It was already too late when he had taken the first gulp. As the ale had filled his mouth he had felt the power in his limbs disappear and he heard Vista fall to the floor of the nest beside him. As darkness slowly descended on him he forced his shutting eyes to look for his captain and found him slumped against the stern mast. Seastone-laced poison? Was his last thought before the darkness finally took him.

He had woken up by a kick in the stomach and someone pulling him by the hair to sit upright. He hadn't remembered anything, and he opened his eyes to see Whitebeard's furious face covered in blood behind bars. By then, he had begun to go by the infamous name. For a second, he thought he was the one behind bars, Whitebeard having discovered his secret when the hand in Marco's hair pulled his head back to expose his neck. Looking up, he found that the owner of said hand was the leader of a pirate hunter crew Whitebeard had beaten barely a month ago. As he had discovered this he also realised that they were in a prison, the rest of Whitebeard's crew was in the surrounding cells in various states of consciousness. Vista and Jozu shared a cell further down the row from Whitebeard, with equally murderous expressions on their faces as they looked at the pirate hunter.

“Mind if I borrow your first mate, Whitebeard? Of course you don't.” Marco was still feeling the effects of the seastone, the stone having formed a lump in his stomach of discomfort. Still there was not much Marco could do than kick and bite when the man started dragging him by his hair, the chains on his wrists jiggling. He was brought to a separate room beside the cell room, and noted with distaste the tools hanging on the walls, and of the chair placed in the middle of the room.

He was forced to sit down by two goons waiting, but managed to get in a good kick in the ribs of the man to his left before he was completely immobile in the chair.

“Now, shall we begin?” the pirate hunter had said cheerfully, and Marco had spit him right between the eyes.

The torture was excruciating. When the pirate hunter had tired of looking for weaknesses and begun torturing for the sake of torture, Marco had fainted twice and thrown up once. To Marco's secret relief, the puking session had rid him of almost all of the seastone in his system and the pirate hunter had exhausted whatever sick fantasies he had imagined since his defeat of Whitebeard. Not so much to Marco's relief, he was then dragged back to what he supposed was his own cell in the room where the rest of his crew waited. The gasps of the crew and the curses Whitebeard threw at the pirate hunter confirmed that he looked as bad as he felt.

He was left on his back in the cell, too much in pain to move. To his right, he could practically feel Whitebeard's anger radiate through the stone wall separating their cells.

“Oi. Marco!” Marco faintly recognised the crew doctor's clipped voice. She was out of his sight from where he was lying, but her crisp tone was a tell-tale sign that she was working and wanted his full cooperation or he would live to regret it. He managed to make a sound in response, which he saw as a success. “Turn over to your side. I saw blood in your mouth, if they pulled teeth you need to get the blood out instead of swallowing it, you'll just puke and that's not what you'll want right now.” Actually, he had thought, that's exactly what I want. So he lay there, despite the doctor's persistent encouragement which later became more insistent. Marco grimaced as he swallowed another clot of blood.

“Marco, I know you're not dead yet, I can hear you breathing. Hang on a bit more and we'll get you out.” Marco opened his eyes and tried to focus on the stone ceiling as Whitebeard spoke. Marco smiled, despite his lips dragging on hurting gaps in his mouth.

“I want to tell you a story.” His voice was distorted by his swollen tongue but he managed to make it loud enough to carry. The others fell silent as they stopped encouraging him to do as the doctor said. He took Whitebeard's silence as encouragement.

“There was a man who accidentally became wanted for an unusual ability of his. He could go years without using it, but every time he did, his friends became obsessed with the money this ability could bring,” Marco was interrupted by Vista's;

“Those weren't really his friends then, were they?” Despite his pain, Marco felt his grin grow wider and he continued.

“No. So the man decided to keep his ability secret, because what his new friends' didn't know couldn't be used against him yoi. He was fine with that for awhile, but his friends began to feel the ache of their bones, they were growing old.” Marco had to take a pause to breathe before he continued. “So the friends retired and the man pushed on, found new friends just as in love with the sea as he was. This went on for awhile and the man's abilities wasn't used for several years, in case one of his friends turned out to be less than he hoped they were yoi. One day, a friend the man had respected found out about the man's ability and tried to sell him off, like a rare bird to a collector. The man didn't like that very much.” Marco quieted.

“And then?” Marco realised that he had fallen silent too long when Whitebeard voiced his question, even though the man very much knew what happened next.

“When the man had fought his former friend he hadn't noticed the snot-nosed kid standing by watching yoi,” Marco teased. “He nearly cleaved the boy's head in two when the boy distracted him with stupid questions like 'do you want to be adopted?'.” Whitebeard snorted, and he wasn't the only one. Marco shut his eyes and listened to the sound of faint giggling.

“I don't recall there being a kid there though,” Whitebeard said when the giggling had disappeared. Marco opened his eyes again, swallowing more blood.

“For the man, the boy was young. The man's abilities had... a side-effect.”

“The ones around him grew old.” Marco didn't heard who it was who had said it, but he sighed all the same.

“Not anything unusual, most people do. The man, however...” Marco's stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the nauseating blood splashing in it, “didn't.” Whitebeard was silent. So was Marco.

“What do you want to say with this?” Whitebeard's voice was gruff, but Marco had known the man long enough to hear the question 'why this story now?'. Marco swallowed.

“I want to change our agreement.” There were some whispers in the other cells, but those died quickly.

“What do you have in mind?” Whitebeard said, and Marco smiled.

“I'll call you pops if you won't quit on me.” There wasn't a sliver of hesitation when Whitebeard answered:

“Never. To live forever would be no match at all.” Marco quietly laughed, but then felt his stomach roll. If there ever was such a thing as silent puking Marco tried his outmost to do that then.

“Marco?” it was Whitebeard. He fought not to black out as the burning bile went into the jagged wounds in his mouth.

“A minute yoi,” he managed to press out between the heaves.

“For someone who thinks he can live forever it would be embarrassing if you die now when you've just told us.” That was Vista. Marco mentally gave the man the finger.

“A devil fruit, yes? Then you have the same problem as the rest of us,” Marco nodded and then realised that Jozu couldn't hear a nod.

“Yeah,” he said, breathlessly. But that problem was soon to be over, Marco realised with no small amount of relief. Gone was the lump of discomfort in his stomach. He would feel his insides beginning to knit together, teeth regrow and the odd blurriness on his right eye side disappearing into sharpness. He got to his feet and looked down. He was covered in blood and bile, his shirt torn at places. Despite that, he smiled.

“Did you guys see where they kept the keys yoi?” He asked, flexing his fingers as he ripped off the chain to his handcuffs.

“... What.” Marco grinned as he heard the incredulous tone in several of his crewmates' voices.

“There's a guardroom somewhere above us, I heard one of the guards complaining about coffee on the surveillance tapes through the window,” it was the doctor again, always the cleverest one. Marco turned towards his own cell window. If he stretched his hand wide he almost covered it whole width. He walked up towards it and taped the bars with his finger. Not seastone. His grin grew wider.

“I'll come back soon yoi.” he didn't hear their answers as he let his flames burn away his human form for the first time in fifty years. He was out through the small window in seconds, leaving the bars in melted twisted heaps on the cell floor behind him. Spreading his wings as wide has possible, he killed the urge to take his unused wings on a longer trip. But it felt so good, he had forgotten the wind, how it ruffled his feathers in the best way, how the salty tang from the sea seemed sharper in his phoenix form... His body practically begged him to do fly for a minute more when he spotted a half-open window on the floor above the cells. He went over and looked. It was an empty office, and Marco landed on a soft rug before transforming into his human form again. He caught sight of one of those commodore jackets and pulled it over his destroyed clothes. Over his hair he pressed a marine cap. It wouldn't fool anyone if they looked close enough, but he wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb in the hallway anymore.

Deciding not to dally anymore, he went outside and into a corridor. He took to his left, as the doctor had heard the men arguing on her side of the cell room and he was relieved when he realised that every door had a name tag or appropriately named 'shrub' or anything else relevant. He paused in front of the door named 'surveillance' and smiled. He knocked.

“Yeah, yeah, wait a second...” a grumpy voice said from inside and Marco's smile grew wider. When a scruffy-looking man with circles around his eyes opened Marco didn't bother to greet him, but knocked the man out cold.

“What the–” his friend shared the same fate and Marco walked in and closed the door behind him. Marco's smile turned into a grin when he saw that the cell keys was just as accurately labelled as the doors had been.

The problems began when he was on his way back to the cells.

He had no idea how to get down to the cells again if he were to walk down there. The quickest and safest way would be becoming a bird once more, so that was what he did, pausing only to gently nudge the window to the surveillance room open a tad bit more as he flew down one floor. There, he soon realised, the guards had decided that a patrol was in order, and had noticed that he was gone. Inside, the pirate hunter were kicking up a storm of fuss while the Whitebeard pirates sat stone-faced, not one of them saying anything. Marco was careful not to let his blue flames light up the cell floors as he passed by. The doctor's window was low, and he realised she was covering it with her body in case he passed by. She must have seen my form then, he thought and as silently as he could, he gripped one of the bars and turned his left wing into an arm. Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed and then pressed the ring of keys into her back. She didn't even flinch as she slowly moved to accept it, careful not to jiggle her chains.

“I'll come through the door in a minute yoi,” he whispered and she gave him a thumbs up behind her back. He let go of the bar and let himself fall a couple of meters before spreading his wings. He followed the wall and finally found what he was looking for when he saw a window with rusty bars close to the cell block. He ripped the bars away, screeching metal making the inhabitants freeze where they stood.

“God day again yoi,” he said coolly as the two goons from before reached for their weapons. “You need to get out of my way if you want to live.” They didn't, apparently, and Marco was not one of the faint-hearted to refuse their death wish. He cleaned up quickly and was halfway out the door before he paused. Then he threw a blue ball of fire at the chair in the middle and let it slowly burn to smitherens as he went on ahead.

To his great amusement the pirate hunter were still raving when he paused outside the cell block door. 

“You have a rat in your marine! Call the headquarters!” Marco supposed that the hunter were raving to the man whose jacket he had stolen and repressed a grin.

“And I'm saying I don't!” Came the angry reply.

The handle to the door was smooth of use as he turned it over. Silence reigned when he took a step inside despite the crowd gathered. Marco noted a band of twenty or so marines plus the pirate hunter and the commodore. Marco pulled off the marine cap and looked for the name tag.

“Hello Commodore...” Marco found it “..Kadar. Nice meeting you yoi.” In a second, twenty guns was pointed at him as he continued to smile pleasantly.

“Yo-you shouldn't be able to walk!” the pirate hunter had finally regained his speech.

“And you shouldn't be alive,” he retorted and saw a flinch on the other man's face. He took a step forward and three guns went off. The fire burned away the wounds and Marco smiled. A choked yell turned the attention from him and he realised that Doc had managed to smuggle the keys to the rest of the cells and now the woman held a flailing marine in her iron grip choking the life out of him through the bars. Others in the crew had stepped outside completely and were now knocking marines to their left and right to make it out in the open. Marco smiled and joined in.

 

The battle was short and bloody. Even being on half-power as their devil fruit users were, their strength outmatched the marines. Marco had already knocked out half the marines with his kicks by the time Whitebeard got rid of his shackles. The rest turned and ran when Whitebeard walked out of his cell, free of his shackles. Marco flew after them all the way out of the base, kicking and pecking those too slow. By the time he returned, the marine commodore was knocked out cold, and there was no trace of the pirate hunter. Marco didn't ask about him, he didn't need to, with Whitebeard's furious face fresh in his mind.

Everything was simple from there. They returned to their ship and rooted out any scavengers stupid enough to try for their boat, and they left the island. Some of the crew were eager to make the townspeople pay as well, but Whitebeard forbid it. Marco shrugged and that was that. With the exception for some new nightmares Marco hadn't had before, life went on as before.

It was two nights after when Marco was on his way over to the map room when he found Whitebeard leaning on the mast. A mild wind swept through Marco's hair as he paused beside his captain, patiently waiting for the man to start talking.

“It took you a year and a half to realise I wouldn't sell you to the highest bidder?” Whitebeard's voice didn't reveal a hurt, just curiosity. Marco leaned his head to the side and he sat down on the railing on the opposite of Whitebeard.

“It took me one minute to realise that you were an idiot,” Marco countered and Whitebeard chuckled. When the chuckling stopped Marco pressed on; “Captain Warne tried to sell me after five years, and Captain Malek after seven,”. Whitebeard's mirth died in his eyes. Marco brushed aside Whitebeard's anger with a wave of his hand.

“They're both long dead yoi.”

“But not what they did to you. That still lives on.” Marco shrugged at that.

“It's a good thing then that I have a family to look after me, right, pops?” Marco was looking up at the stars when he finally said it, a smile tugging at his lips. Above them, the stars glimmered merrily on the deep blue valve. His captain's laughter was the only sound carrying across the open water.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. My first actually finished piece actually uploaded. This is a time of joy!
> 
> Edit: I obviously didn't read this one through the first time. Whoops. Anyway if you see something else wrong please tell me, my english needs improvement!


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